Opinion Research Paper – The Ethics of Realism in Virtual and Augmented Reality
An international group of researchers, with the participation of Mel Slater, director of Event Lab in the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Barcelona (UB), has published a new paper in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality reflecting on potential ethical problems of mass spread of virtual and augmented reality. Researchers warn about the dangers that might arise as these technologies becomes more and more realistic and urge for new research to address these scenarios.
Other participants in the study are representatives of major companies and institutions such as BBC R&D, Digital Catapult, Dimension /Hammerhead VR, Facebook London, NESTA, Jigsaw -part of Google-, Magic Leap, Microsoft Research, and University College London.
Download the paper here: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frvir.2020.00001/full
Limits between reality and virtual experiences
In order to reflect about potential dangers of virtual and augmented reality the working group set out to consider possible worst-case scenarios and possible areas of research to address these. They concentrated mainly on problems that might arise as XR becomes more and more realistic. As virtual reality becomes more real people may find it difficult to distinguish between reality and virtual reality. For example, remembering virtual events as if they had been real, and failing to distinguish over time events that really happened and those that happened in virtual reality.
Researchers also highlighted another potential problem with an ultrarealistic experience: we don't know what are the after effects and mental consequences of using virtual reality - for example in extreme violent games - and of the real-world transition from virtual reality.
Some other issues they warn against were data privacy and the dangers of identity impersonation and fake news. "People (e.g., politicians) could be shown to carry out actions in virtual reality that they never did in reality. Although the same is true with just video, in virtual reality it is more powerful because it seems to happen life-sized in the same space in which you are located. It happens in front of you, not through a screen," said Slater.
A regulatory regime similar to cinema
Given these ethical challenges, researchers highlighted that there is essentially no data that can help in addressing them. So, besides the potential problems, some important research questions are outlined in the paper,...
See the full story here: https://www.ub.edu/web/ub/en/menu_eines/noticies/2020/04/032.html
and here https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/uob-vaa042720.php